Brother
by eedwrites
Summary: As the first dead Weasley sibling, Fred's job is to greet the rest as they come and join him in the afterlife.


**A/n: This was posted from my tumblr impediamenta. Check that out for drabbles and such.**

 **Of course I'm not JKR, you imbecile!**

* * *

Fred feels the pull for the first time some thirty years after his death. Not unlike a portkey, it scares the hell out of him. Uncle Gideon says it's a summons. That scares Fred even more, because as much as he misses his family, he really does not want to see them. At _all._ It isn't like he has much of a choice, however, so he allows the feeling to guide him to his charge.

He arrives in a forest, one that he doesn't recognize at all. The wind is cold, and Fred hasn't been cold for thirty years so it bites him all the more. Taking in the unfamiliar trees, it hits him like a punch when he realizes who it must be.

"Charlie?" Fred calls warily, hoping that he's wrong.

He's not.

"George?" comes the confused reply from somewhere to his left. Fred almost wants to chuckle as he heads in the direction of the voice.

"Still can't tell us apart, eh?" he replies. "Mum always did say those dragons would be the death of you. I assume that's what happened, at least."

No reply. Fred shoves his hands in his pockets in a futile attempt to block out the cold. He continues on.

"I must say, I had hoped I wouldn't see any of you for a while. But here we are."

Silence.

"Charlie?" he calls again. "I haven't been cold for thirty years, let's get on with it."

Footsteps from his right. Fred stops and turns to face the brother he hasn't seen up close for so long. Charlie appears as he did right after the war, and he looks extremely confused. Fred, who had never been an ace in subtlety, decides to remedy that.

"You're dead, mate," he informs Charlie. "As am I."

"Oh," Charlie says blankly. Then he breaks out in a grin. "Well, nice to see you. It's been a while," he adds, as if they were old school friends meeting in a checkout line.

"And you," Fred says with a bow, in the same tone. "So, d'you want to be a ghost? I think I'm supposed to ask that."

Charlie smiles. "No, we have catching up to do." Fred claps his hands together.

"Well, cheers. Let's go then. I'm frozen."

"This is like, May weather," Charlie says dryly. Fred shakes his head bemusedly, then holds out a hand for Charlie, just like Uncle Fabian did so many years ago for Fred. Charlie takes it, and together, they go.

* * *

Luckily, it is years before another sibling comes. Charlie and Fred greet Mum about fifteen years after Charlie arrives, then Dad about two after her. Tonks and her father bring Andromeda, and the big family reunion brings tears to everyone's eyes. Professor McGonagall arrives one day, and looks positively appalled when she sees three Marauders, Fabian and Gideon Prewett, and Fred Weasley all together. The afterlife is a happy place.

Fred feels the tug for the fourth time a few years after they collect Dad, but this time he knows who is coming. Bill had acquired some nasty spell damage from a work accident years ago, and his health had never been the same. They had been watching old age make his condition worsen for weeks.

Sure enough, Fred appears on a cliff by the sea. Charlie shows by his side a moment later. He looks positively giddy.

"Thank Merlin, I couldn't watch him so ill anymore," Charlie remarks. Fred rather agrees.

"Where do you think he is?" Fred asks, looking around the area. He had only been once while he was alive, so he was letting Charlie lead.

"I'll find him," Charlie says with a smirk, then shouts: "WILLIAM!" Fred snickers.

There is silence for a minute, before a shout comes from inside Shell Cottage. "DON'T CALL ME WILLIAM!" Charlie runs toward the house. Fred follows at a more leisurely pace. When he gets inside, he finds that Charlie has tackled their brother to the ground.

"I assume you've figured out you're dead, then," Fred drawls, leaning against the doorway. Bill shoves Charlie off of him, and looks up at Fred in wonder.

"I expected you, but for some reason it's a shock you're here," he says quietly. Fred laughs.

"That's what Dad said, isn't it Charlie," he says. Charlie nods.

"I expect you'll hear that every time," he muses. Bill is smiling now, and Charlie turns to him seriously. "Ghosthood?" he asks. Bill shakes his head.

"I'm glad you're dead, Bill," Fred says. It was true, because unlike the sickly old man that Bill had been alive, here he had his hair long and his face scar free, just like he did before Dumbledore died. The brothers all grasp hands, and off they go.

* * *

The next summons is a few years later, and Fred goes alone. It's Percy, he knows, and Fred is oddly excited, considering for the last few years of his life he had hated his older brother. He lands in a meadow, with a warm breeze in his hair and birds chirping around him. Percy was married here, sixty years ago. Fred finds him sat on a tree stump, and sits beside him.

Percy looks like he did in his late twenties, after his family had taken him back; when he was newly married and a new father. Fred remembers watching Percy during this time in his life, and being so _happy_ that his older brother was moving on.

"Hello," he says lamely, because what do you say to a brother that you had not spoken to save ten seconds before your death. Percy whips around, like he hadn't noticed he had company before. He blinks, in the same manner as everyone before him.

"I'm so sorry," Percy whispers, and Fred is taken aback.

"Why?" he asks, though he knows. "It wasn't your fault."

"If I hadn't distracted you…" Percy begins. Fred shushes him.

"You made me laugh, Perce. I had decided I would die laughing ages before then, and you made it happen," he says quietly. Fred grabs Percy in a hug. Years ago, when he was alive and young, Fred would have joked the tension away, but he's grown too, and he isn't some twenty-year-old kid anymore.

"I had wished it was me who died," Percy says. "Then, you know. And George agreed with me." Fred closes his eyes.

That argument, the one that occurred a few weeks after the battle, was the most painful thing Fred has ever witnessed, living or dead. He sighs. "George was glad you were alive, Perce," Fred whispers, because this is the worst part, that part that had made Fred nauseous. "He wanted to be dead." Percy is silent for a moment.

"I think we knew that, really," he says slowly. Fred nods, deciding to keep the worst parts of that story safe for now, because George has never told anyone, and it isn't Fred's place to do so. He grins, to lighten the mood.

"So, what'll it be? Are you going back, be a ghost?" Fred asks, pulling Percy off the stump.

"No," Percy answers. "I want to move… on."

"Good," Fred sighs in mock relief. "I have no idea how to work that, the other option." Percy laughs, and Fred grabs his hand.

* * *

Ron goes just past his one-hundreth birthday, and Fred goes with Hermione, who had died a few years prior, to collect him. They meet Ron at the Burrow, and Fred almost has to break up Ron and his wife after a very uncomfortable five minutes of snogging that makes even Fred Weasley flush pink. Fred is an old hat at this whole "bringing people to the afterlife" thing now, so he lets Hermione to the explaining while he takes in his youngest brother. Ron looks the youngest of any of the siblings he has collected thus far, only nineteen, just like Hermione. Interestingly, he has kept his scars, which makes Fred smile just a little. Like with Bill, Fred had been so relieved to get Ron, because the sick old man had looked so unlike the person Fred remembered. And if the snogging was any indication, Hermione agreed.

Ron has already decided to move on before he even notices Fred hanging back behind his wife quietly. A second later Fred finds himself crushed in a hug that brings tears to both their eyes, because this is Fred's baby brother, despite the fact that Fred's baby brother lived eighty years longer that Fred.

Fred smiles a watery smile. "Hey, Ronnikins," he greets, just like he did all those years ago, like they had only been separated a day, and not eighty years. Ron laughs, and hugs Fred tighter.

"You were so quiet I didn't even see you," he says, and Fred laughs.

"You were busy," he smirks, and it's Ron's turn to flush.

"Yeah, uh," he stammers. "Sorry about that."

Fred snorts, then releases Ron. "Onward, then?"

"Onward," Ron repeats, and they go.

* * *

Harry follows Ron, and he is brought by his parents and Ron and Hermione. The next Weasley sibling to go is Ginny, who apparently just couldn't live without her husband, and the entire battalion of Weasleys come and get her from the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Fred had thought Ron and Hermione's reunion was bad, but he plain turns around for Harry and Ginny's. Everyone else is unruffled, so maybe Fred is just unused to it. Charlie laughs at him. She goes through the entire family, and Fred, never being patient, gets antsy while Mum fusses over her. He wants to hug his little sister, and he wants to do it now.

So naturally, he shoves his way to the front of the group and between Mum and Ginny and picks her up off the ground. She shrieks, then realizes who, exactly, has picked her up off the ground.

"Hello, Gin," Fred says, while she stares at him, hard. Her brown eyes, even now, make him shift slightly. Then she grins, and punches him hard on the arm. He drops her, swearing, and she laughs, then hugs him.

"Hello," she says into his shoulder, and Fred can't quite process the emotions he gets at seeing her again, so he does exactly what he would have done to her when they were alive. He teases her about boys.

"That was quite the display, Ginny," Fred says mock-seriously. She shrugs, unrepentantly.

"We've been married for seventy years," she laughs finally. Fred snorts then shakes his head.

"Fred, this is your line!" Charlie calls from behind him. Fred smirks, and bows.

"Would you like to move on, or be a ghost?" he asks, with his best game-show host voice.

"Move on," Ginny says without missing a beat. Harry grabs her hand, and the Weasleys return.

* * *

Fred is anxious now.

Fred is anxious, because George, the stubborn git, is one-hundred and fifteen years old, and ill, and Fred just wants his twin back, dammit, and it's time, Fred can _feel_ it in his bones. The stubborn git just won't let go.

Angelina is here, and she and Fred watch George constantly. It hurts, so damn much, to see him in a fucking hospital bed. George Weasley should never be confined to a bed, but he is, because he's ill and old and unable to move. His children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren come every day, and even they know it's time for George to move on.

But the stubborn git just won't die. It's bloody frustrating. Fred's been more or less waiting for nearly a century to see his twin, and of course George has to be difficult about it.

George's vitals drop, _finally_ , one summer night, and Fred and Angelina cheer. Fred almost sobs in relief when he feels the summons. This was one Fred would do alone, and Angie bids him luck as he leaves.

Predictably, he arrives in the joke shop. It has empty shelves, just like it did the day they bought it, and Fred knows, instinctively, where George'll be. Fred heads straight to the back, to the lab. The tears begin as soon as he sees George poking around the empty drawers. Fred takes a deep breath and wipes his cheeks.

"Looks just like it did the day we bought it, doesn't it Georgie," he says shakily, as George whips around. Fred loses it at the sight of his face.

They look the same. Mercifully, perfectly, exactly, identical, in a way they haven't been since they were nineteen years old. Fred and George Weasley are identical twins, with four ears between them. Fred is over to George so fast he could have apparated.

He can't talk, or give the speech, or ask if George wants to be a ghost, like he is supposed to. He can't, because he has his head buried in George's shoulder, and George smells the same, and Fred has only just realized that he had forgotten that smell.

George is crying into Fred's shoulder, and Fred laughs at the thought, because when they were both alive they probably would have been disgusted at the that, but it just doesn't matter now, because they are both here and both dead and both together. Suddenly, George is laughing too, and then Fred is laughing harder.

"If you say you want to be a ghost I will wring your neck, Gred," Fred says, after they both calm down a bit. George snorts.

"No, I don't suppose I do, Forge," George retorts.

Fred presses a hand to his chest dramatically. The movement is awkward, considering he is still clinging to George with everything he's got. "Thank Merlin. I wouldn't want to explain that to your wife." He shivers. "Or Mum."

George nods emphatically. "Are we going, Fred?" he asks after a brief silence. Fred takes a breath and looks around their shop for the last time. He nods, and at long last, the Weasley twins make their way to the next great adventure.

* * *

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